Syrias never-ending conflict: Nation already faces a NEW civil war as ISIS carry out fresh massacres and Turkish-backed fighters clash with Kurds, threatening to drag in US and Israel
Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) officially ended Syrian President Bashar al-Assads longstanding regime earlier this week, naming a leader of a new transition government days after Assad fled Damascus to seek refuge in Moscow.
Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) officially ended Syrian President Bashar al-Assads longstanding regime earlier this week, naming a leader of a new transition government days after Assad fled Damascus to seek refuge in Moscow.
HTS took to state television to announce Mohammad al-Bashir - the head of the groups so-called Salvation Government in Syrias northwest Idlib province - as interim Prime Minister of a transitional cabinet that will remain in place until March 1.
Now, scenes in Syrias major cities Damascus and Aleppo appear relatively calm as the new authorities begin rolling out aid to those cut off from government services.
But the seemingly stable beginnings of the transition government belie what is unfolding elsewhere across Syria.
There are makings of a new civil war in the north as Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militants streamed into Kurdish-held areas.
Widespread reports claimed the SNA was ransacking Kurdish homes while shocking videos emerged that appeared to show Turkish-aligned rebels executing wounded Kurdish soldiers as they lay in hospital beds in the town of Manbij.
Meanwhile, Israel is conducting widespread airstrikes and bombing campaigns while advancing troops and tanks far into the buffer zone separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
And other reports claim ISIS fighters have captured and executed Syrian government forces as they fled the HTS onslaught through the Homs desert.
Destroyed trucks after a Turkish airstrike near Qamishli, northeast of Syria on 11 December 2024
Israeli troops move within the buffer zone between Israel and Syria, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights
Soldiers of Syrian National Army (SNA) are seen firing a heavy machine gun in Tal Rifaat as they clash with Kurdish forces
The Kurds, an ethnic group numbering some 35-40 million, do not have their own nation-state and are spread throughout several countries in the Middle East.
In northeast Syria they have their own autonomous region known as Rojava, which was established by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing - the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) - in 2012 shortly after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
The PYD constitutes a major part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a multi-ethnic but Kurd-majority militia that was created during the Syrian civil war and supported by the US that led the fight against the Islamic State.
SDF fighters freed much of northern Syria from ISIS throughout the 2010s before eventually defeating the extremists and taking their stronghold in Raqqa in 2017.
But Turkey sees the Kurds as a threat to Turkish sovereignty and labels the SDF, YPG and PYD as nothing more than terrorist offshoots of the Kurdistan Workers Party - a Kurdish political and militant organisation in Turkey that has long been engaged in a guerrilla war for independence against the Turkish state.
After the Syrian civil war ground to a halt with a tense ceasefire agreement in 2020, recent years had seen a degree of stability in northern Syria.
But the chaos triggered by the lightning rebel offensive to depose Assad offered the Turkish-backed SNA an opportunity to take the fight to the Kurds once again.
SNA fighters are now said to have crossed the Euphrates River in northern Syria and are heading towards Kobani - a Kurdish-majority city close to the Turkish border that sits within the autonomous region of Rojava.
They have left a trail of destruction behind them having already forced the SDF out of various towns and settlements further west, including the Arab-majority cities of Tal Rifaat and Manbij that the SDF liberated from ISIS.
A spokesperson for the SDF told MailOnline: When the SNA advanced to Damascus, Turkey ordered factions to attack the region, and for six days they have been attacking.
He went on to accuse the Turkish military of providing direct support to the SNA, claiming: The target of these attacks is to get to Kobani, and they are being backed by Turkish planes and UAVs. They have conducted over 120 attacks in the region.
These attacks are direct orders from the Turkish occupation. They are part of an ethnic cleansing Turkey wants to practice in the region.
They are occupying Kurdish homes and destroying them. The ultimate goal of Turkey is to displace Kurds from the region.
When asked about the hospital video, the spokesperson added: These two were in the hospital due to a Turkish airstrike. But when the Turkish faction took control of Manbij, they entered the hospital and killed them. This is just part of what happens on the ground.
Widespread reports claimed the SNA is ransacking Kurdish homes while shocking videos emerged that appeared to show Turkish-aligned rebels executing wounded Kurdish soldiers as they lay in hospital beds in the town of Manbij
Kurdish men who were allegedly wounded in a Turkish airstrike are seen moments before they were executed in hospital in shocking video footage
Syrian National Army (SNA) soldiers celebrate victory in Manbij on December 7, 2024 in Manbij, Syria
Six Syrian naval ships were destroyed in an overnight Israeli attack on the port city of Latakia on December 10, 2024
The UN special envoy for Syria on December 10 called on Israel to halt its military movements and bombardments inside Syria, days after the fall of president Bashar al-Assad
The SDF-affiliated Manbij Military Council said today that US delegates had brokered a ceasefire with the SNA to prevent further bloodshed, with the SDF agreeing to withdraw from the city.
But hundreds of Kurdish fighters and civilians have reportedly been killed, while a video reportedly filmed by an SNA militant showed fellow Turkish-backed troops storming into a hospital in Manbij before shooting dead Kurds lying in hospital beds.
The Kurds - clearly suffering from significant injuries, were seen answering questions posed by the militants who promptly raised a Kalashnikov assault rifle and shot them dead.
Turkey has already made its stance on the future of Syria clear, with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan declaring that Kurdish militants must not be allowed to take advantage of the situation, adding that Turkey would work with determination to prevent Syria from turning into a haven for terrorism.
While the Kurds resist the onslaught of the SNA, Israel is continuing to bombard targets across Syria, hitting more than 480 targets over the last two days, including most of the strategic weapons stockpiles in the country.
HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa - better known by his nom-de-guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani - has said the Islamist group does not intend to enter into a new conflict with Israel.
But Israel says the strikes on Syrian weapons stockpiles left behind by Assads forces are necessary to prevent any chance of them falling into the hands of Islamist or extremist groups.
In addition to the widespread strikes on weapons facilities, the IDF also obliterated six Syrian navy vessels in the port of Latakia, just north of Russias Hmeimim airbase, British security firm Ambrey confirmed yesterday.
Israels Defence Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said the military operations were necessary to create a sterile defence zone in southern Syria, ensuring the security of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights separating Israel from Syria.
He gave no details but said the zone, would prevent the establishment and organisation of terror in Syria.
However, several reports suggested Israeli troops and tanks had advanced far into a decades-long established buffer zone between the Golan Heights and Syria - a move that was widely condemned as further destabilising the precarious situation.
British security firm Ambrey said video footage showed one Syrian naval vessel listing and that five others had been sunk amid Israeli strikes
An Israeli soldier directs a tank onto a transporter in Majdal Shams, close to the ceasefire line with Syria, in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, December 11, 2024
Syrians look for metal pieces and unexploded ammunition at the site of the previous evenings Israeli airstrike that targeted shipments of weapons that belonged to Syrian government forces in Qamishli, in mainly Kurdish northeastern Syria, on December 10, 2024
There are also fears that the Islamic State, once the most feared jihadist group in the region, could attempt a resurgence amid the chaos following Assads downfall.
ISIS rapidly expanded its influence in the early days of the Syrian civil war and by 2014 had managed to conquer huge swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
But it was met with huge resistance from the US-backed Kurdish SDF; a US-led coalition force of more than a dozen countries including the UK, France, Saudi Arabia and Jordan; Turkish-backed groups; Russian forces and even the Syrian government.
The extremists wilted under this onslaught and rapidly lost territory before suffering effective defeat in Raqqa in 2017 and were later largely wiped out in 2019.
But remnants of ISIS in Syria withdrew to a smattering of camps in Syrias deserts.
Fears persist that ISIS could now seek to expand from its camps having bided its time for years.
A Syria war monitor said on Tuesday that jihadists had captured and slaughtered dozens of government soldiers who had fled Damascus and tried to head east as the rebels marched toward the capital over the weekend.
Some 54 soldiers were rounded up in the desert by ISIS militants, robbed and swiftly executed according to reports by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Middle East Monitor, with videos circulating on social media purporting to show one of the killings.
Britains former secret service chief also warned of a serious spike in the terror groups threat to Europe.
Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, said fighters from the terrorist group are being detained in camps in eastern Syria by Kurdish groups and US troops.
But if the SDF redirects its resources to protect Kurdish areas from assaults by Turkish-backed militants and Donald Trump pulls US troops out of Syria, the ISIS prisoners could break out.
Sir Alex told BBC Radio 4 on Monday: The camps represent a hotbed of radicalisation and havent been sorted out. If the SDF were to go off the job, our security situation here would worsen.
He added: For us, I think we need to be realistic. The reality, the one thing you know about Syria for sure, proven by history, is that attempts to impose change from the outside will not work.
But we also have some hard interests and the primary one of those as I have said before is the existence of a very large number of ISIS detainees left over from the destruction of the caliphate, currently contained by the Kurdish groups in the east.
But if they go off the job you can expect a serious spike in the threat posed to Europe by ISIS.
Israeli tanks and a military vehicle are seen on the Golan Heights side of the ceasefire line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, December 11, 2024
Anti-government fighters inspect a tank, left behind by fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in the northern Syrian town of Tal Rifaat on December 2, 2024
The prospect of a resurgent ISIS in Syria is slim, but fears persist as Britains former secret service chief warned of a serious spike in the terror groups threat to Europe
US soldiers patrol the countryside of Rumaylan (Rmeilan) in Syrias northeastern Hasakeh province
While the world watches to see whether Syria can prevent a new chapter of civil war, its new prime minister set about reassuring civilians and suspicious Western governments that HTS is committed to stability.
Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syrias branch of Al-Qaeda and is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by most Western nations, but in recent years it has sought to distance itself from its jihadist roots and has moderated its rhetoric.
Caretaker Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir, whose appointment was announced Tuesday, is tasked with heading the multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian country until March 1.
He said this morning: Precisely because we are Islamic, we will guarantee the rights of all people and all sects in Syria.
Mine is an appeal to all Syrians abroad: Syria is now a free country that has earned its pride and dignity. Come back, he said.
We must rebuild, be reborn and we need everyones help.
He went on to insist that Syrias new rulers would be willing to work with anyone so long as they did not defend Assad.
The civil war, which began in 2011 after Assad ordered a brutal crackdown on the Arab Spring protests, has killed more than 500,000 people and forced half the population to flee their homes, with six million of them seeking refuge abroad.
We have no problem with anyone, state, party or sect, who kept their distance from the bloodthirsty Assad regime, Bashir said.
Asked whether Syrias new constitution would be Islamic, he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera that we will clarify all these details during the constituent process.
Top rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani speaks to a crowd at Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Syria December 8, 2024
Syrians gather at Umayyad Square to celebrate the collapse of 61 years of Baath Party rule in Damascus, Syria on December 9, 2024
A military vehicle belonging to the Syrian regime forces burns in the Hama governorate on December 7, 2024
HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa - better known by his nom-de-guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani (also written Jawlani or Julani) - has insisted that he will work to create a tolerant, civilised nation where religious and ethnic minorities can live peacefully.
He has also welcomed international monitoring of Syrias chemical weapons that were found to have been deployed by Assad during the civil war.
But major doubts persist over HTS commitment to upholding such equality and transparency - and whether the group will be willing to work with other factions as part of a coalition government after March 1, thereby loosening its grip on power.
Regional analysts and human rights activists point out that HTS imposed an authoritarian Islamist rule over its territory in Idlib and there are suspicions that the groups jihadist origins remain.
Besides HTS, the other major player in the rebel offensive against the Assad regime is the Syrian National Army (SNA) or Free Syrian Army (FSA) - an umbrella group of rebel militias that have long been financed and armed by Turkey.
The rebel factions were able to fight effectively side-by-side to topple Assad, but now their divisions could be highlighted in the resulting power vacuum.
Analysts and observers hold out hope these factions can reach an agreement and create a stable administration, laying the foundations for re-development.
British senior minister Pat McFadden said on Monday that Britain could drop its proscription of HTS as a terrorist organisation based on how it operates after Assads ouster - a step towards legitimacy in the eyes of the West that could precipitate increased aid and investment.
Edmund Fitton-Brown, Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, told MailOnline that a best-case scenario could see HTS work with other factions to achieve stability.
Will there be democracy? Probably not in the Western sense - but some kind of consultative system, possibly involving elections, could emerge, he said.
HTS seem clear that they want Islamic governance but also show awareness of minority rights. It is not clear that they will fall into the Taliban trap of ignoring domestic and international opinion, womens rights and other key issues.
